Symbologies
More than 300 different bar code symbologies exist today, but less than 20 are commonly used. Different uses require different symbologies, sometimes determined by the industry using the code, application, or product size.The bar code symbol is a pattern of bars and spaces following specific standards, that when read by a scanner, interpret the bars and spaces into characters and numbers. Sometimes the characters and numbers have specific meanings, but more and more often, they are similar to our car license plates, that when called up in a computer, provide a range of information, depending on the application, the industry and the code.Today there are linear or one-dimensional codes, two-dimensional (2D) codes, and two new symbology families from the Uniform Code Council: the Reduced Space Symbology (RSS) and the Composite Code. One-dimensional codes contain the same information throughout the height of the code, making them vertically redundant. This allows some accept-ance of voids and specks in the printing process. Two-dimensional codes can be used as license plates or to carry large amounts of data.